Open AccessKøn, krop og ånd i middelalderen
Author(s) -
Else Marie Wiberg Pedersen
Publication year - 1997
Publication title -
kvinder, køn and forskning
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
eISSN - 2245-6937
pISSN - 0907-6182
DOI - 10.7146/kkf.v0i3.28482
Subject(s) - soul , dualism , expression (computer science) , perception , art , function (biology) , simple (philosophy) , literature , psychology , philosophy , aesthetics , theology , epistemology , computer science , biology , programming language , evolutionary biology
Very often, the medieval view on "gender" and "body" is depicted either unequivocally negative or just equivocal. According to this simplistic picture, a number of medieval men and women have been portrayed as alternately extremely misogynist and extremely submissive and self-suppressing. With the examples of Bernard of Clairvaux, Beatrice of Nazareth, Mechtild of Hackeborn, and Gertrud of Helfta, this article tries to differentiate more subtly the perception of the concepts "woman/female" and "man/male" by pointing to their function as symbols within the Christian tradition. Furthermore, it is demonstrated that the view on body/soul is not an expression of simple dualism.